From The Sideline - Go Away Rain
On return from her RDA duties my wife informed me that community based radio station Paradise FM had announced that today’s preliminary finals which were due to be held at Ballina Seagulls had been postponed due to concerns regarding the state of the pitch and the weather forecast. A quick call to Mick Koellner confirmed that to be the case, the decision made at 0830 by the zone in consultation with Ballina Shire Council ground staff.
Our women’s team was scheduled to play Lismore with the winner to meet Casuarina in the grand final. The difficulties faced by the zone in completing this year’s competition have been well documented in previous posts, and I recall mentioning in my first post that we’re fortunate to have a viable competition that hopefully would conclude on grand final day, Covid and weather permitting.
Ballina has fielded teams in the Far North Coast Women’s competition for the last four seasons. The competition is played in 10 a side format and matches played over two halves of fifteen minutes each. Their season has been disrupted more than any other, however the gals continue to do the club proud. They’re coached by Paul Davies (Commish) with the assistance of Kerene Bienke (Binks) and managed by club secretary Al Noble. Commish played in many premiership winning teams for Ballina between 1994 and 2007 and has been coaching various junior and senior teams for over 20 years, somehow finding the time to coach both the women and under 17’s for the last two seasons.
Last week’s defensive effort of Letia Paton (“The Axette”……she chops ‘em down) was matched a few hours later by Marika Koroibete’s try saver against the Boks at the Adelaide Oval. During the week, I was fortunate to have a chat with Letia about her involvement in rugby. The nineteen year old former Emmanuel Anglican College student was inspired to take up rugby as a sport after becoming an ardent NRL fan and spent two seasons playing in our junior teams picking up best and fairest awards along the way. She enjoys the team involvement and the social side of rugby, which provide balance to her busy lifestyle of working fulltime in two jobs, cross fit training, watching the NRL and listening to music.
Letia isn’t the first female blonde hooker to play for Ballina, that place taken by my daughter Louise in 1993. Unfortunately, all three of us have had a long eight weeks watching Manly Warringah’s demise in the NRL. We wish all the girls a long and enjoyable involvement with the club.
So bottle up your frustration, keep clicking away happy Seahorse style, and I look forward to writing about a couple of flags heading to Quays Reserve in a fortnight. Hopefully there’s wins for Rothfire and Mumbai Jewel at the Valley this arvo and the Wallabies at the SFS tonight.
PS. Rothfire saluted at $7.50, however both Mumbai Jewel and the Wallabies were flattened in running.
